Join Susan as she obsesses about cosmetic chemistry and other things (some possibly related to monkeys). Often strange, occasionally useful, and always worth a stop as a point of interest on your journey through the Intertron.

If you're adding things to the water phase, remove the same amount from the amount of distilled water you're using. For instance, if you add 10% aloe vera to the recipe, remove 10% from the distilled water amount, meaning you'll have 10% aloe vera and 67.5% in the heated water phase. If you add 10% aloe vera, 10% chamomile hydrosol, 5% beta glucan, 5% Multifruit BSC, and 2% niacinamide, you'll remove 32% of the distilled water amount, leaving you with 45.5% distilled water. Yes, the product will be thicker when you remove the water, but how much thicker depends upon what you're adding. If you are removing water for more powders and viscous liquids, the product will be thicker. If you are removing water for things like aloe vera liquid and hydrosols, your product might not seem that different!

BASIC FACIAL MOISTURIZER RECIPE
HEATED WATER PHASE
77.5% distilled water (you can replace 10% to all of the water with hydrosols or aloe vera)
up to 5% humectant of choice
2% hydrolyzed protein

HEATED OIL PHASE
8% oils
4% Incroquat BTMS-50
2% cetyl alcohol

COOL DOWN PHASE
0.5% to 1% preservative
2% panthenol

A huge part of the fun of formulating is figuring out things that can go together and be awesome for our skin! So what combinations have I used in the past?

I really like hydrolyzed proteins in my products, so I make sure that I choose one for my moisturizers. I have found that Phytokeratin is a nicely balanced one with some that penetrate my skin for moisturizing and some that will film form. I'm having a love affair with niacinamide in my facial products at 2% to 4% to reduce greasiness and reduce transepidermal water loss (TEWL). I really like to add aloe vera liquid at up to 10% for its ability to film form and soothe my skin, and I love adding chamomile hydrosol at up to 10% to help with redness. (I'm not a fan of the smell, though! Too earthy for me!) For my humectant, I think I'll go with sodium lactate here at 2.5% because it's not only a great hygroscopic ingredinet, but it will also help with acne. I'm using it at less than 3% because at higher levels, it can be sun sensitizing. Oh, what the heck! Let's add some glycerin to the mix at 2.5% because we can never get too moist, eh? And I'm throwing in 0.5% allantoin to act as an occlusive barrier ingredient and skin softener. These ingredients should be good for all skin types.

Total percentage of ingredients: 22.5% because I have already planned for the humectant and protein in the original recipe. So I'm removing 22.5% from the distilled water amount to total 55%.

It's easy to tweak this recipe to make something for your skin type. Let's say you really want some anti-aging alphahydroxy acids in the product with some silicones and humectants. You could use some hyaluronic acid (Lotioncrafter link) at 0.5% along with the glycerin at 2.5% (which means we have 3% humectant, not 5% humectant, so we'll have to adjust accordingly.) You could add some Multifruit BSC at 10% as your AHAs, coenzyme Q10 at 1%, hydrolyzed silk protein at 2% (already accounted for), 0.5% allantoin, 10% aloe vera liquid, and 10% rose hydrosol. Instead of oils, we could use the silicones dimethicone and cyclomethicone at 4% each in the cool down phase instead of the oils in the heated oil phase.

To modify the recipe, we'd add up all the new things - 10% Multifruit BSC + 1% coenzyme Q10 + 0.5% allantoin + 10% aloe vera liquid + 10% rose hydrosol = 31.5% change in the distilled water amount.
We have to remove 2% because we only used 3% humectant. So we have to remove 29.5% water from 77.5% =
And we don't change the oil amount because we're using 8% silicones in place of the 8% oils.

As a note, if you are a silicone loving person, definitely make Incroquat BTMS-50 your emulsifier of choice. It can emulsify huge quantities of silicones! This isn't to say the other emulsifiers can't emulsify silicones - I've done up to 10% with Polawax - but Incroquat BTMS-50 is made to be more stable with them.

3 comments:

Terry
said...

Thanks Wundergoddess, I was nearly having an emballism trying to get a grip on the "removal of water" from formulae to include other things. I want a super light product that soothes burnt skin, at 80% water/20% oil (ApKerOl)tm lol. Emulsifier, butters etc divide into the oils but are still oils so will add up to 20%, oily stuff in cooldown is also still part of oils but the one thing thats nippin' my butt is the powders like allantoin, alum, xanthan gum. When I add those, because they're water soluble, do I also subtract from the water content to make up for them? Hmmm? ThanksTerry

Back in your post specifically about Multifruit BSC, you say that it is NOT recommended to use cationic emulsifiers like BTMS 50 with this ingredient. Did you learn something new or did you just try it and find that it worked fine?

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Formulating & Creating Lotions! This 224 page e-book is perfect for those of you familiar with lotion making and ready to start creating your own recipes! I've included all the information I know about the HLB system, as well as my base recipes for lotions, creams, body butters, and moisturizers!

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Lotion Making 101. This 305 page book includes everything you wanted to know about the basics of making lotions, including the chemistry of our lotions, ingredients we use, keeping your lotions safe, equipment you might need, and more recipes than I could count! For those of you who don't have the Back to Basics book, I've included all the carrier oil, exotic oil, and butter profiles.

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Back to Basics: Anhydrous Products. This 122 page e-book includes over 50 recipes and explanations for making lotion bars, whipped butters, balms, oil based scrubs, bath melts, bath oils, oil based sprays, solid scrubs, and facial sera, as well as all the carrier oil, exotic oil, and butter profiles and everything I've gathered about the chemistry of our oils including fatty acids, mechanisms of rancidity, phytosterols, and polyphenols.

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Who the heck is Swift?

I'm an aspiring cosmetic scientician and DIY girl interested in pretty much any craft you can name - bookbinding, jewellery making, sewing, paper crafts, polymer clay - but my main passion is bath & body product making.
I am currently obsessed with Rock Band (bass and singing) and science books. Did you know my favourite word is "toaster" and my favourite adjective is "hirsute"?